


The Best Entertainment Money Can Buy

by casenpai



Series: The Otherverse [1]
Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Mirrorverse, Alternate Universe - Reverse Verse, Gen, Mirrorverse, Reverse Personality, Whoa This Really Isn't Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 01:39:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4203108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casenpai/pseuds/casenpai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the scion of the McCormicks, the richest family in South Park, decides he wants a piece of furniture built in his expansive mansion, his so-called friends are keen to answer his calls... for a price, of course. But what on earth was Kenneth thinking when he bought that thing? And why get his friends, of all people, to build it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Entertainment Money Can Buy

**Author's Note:**

> "Cas," you ask as you look through this fic. "What the heckie is this?"
> 
> Well, friend, you've stumbled onto my reverse personality verse. This version of South Park is the complete opposite of what it's like in canon: the town is a run-down, miserable shell of what it used to be, and the people who live there are twisted into the opposite of who they should be:
> 
>   * Stan is a flirty hipster who would sooner listen to indie music in his room than to play sports; 
>   * Kyle is an incredibly angry and promiscuous delinquent with a penchant for cruelty; 
>   * Kenny is the son of the richest family in South Park, and he makes sure everyone knows it; 
>   * Eric is a meek, shy boy who is perpetually bullied by his friends.
> 

> 
> I wrote this story more for my own reference, but I figured I'd post it here. I roleplay this version of Kyle over [here](http://cynical-critic.tumblr.com/), in case anyone's interested in seeing more of the verse.
> 
> * * *

“What the fuck is all this shit?”

The redhead’s abrasive tone rang out through the large room he was standing in, its vaulted ceilings doing nothing to quell the sensation of openness around him. Kyle, as well as both Stan and Eric, had been summoned to Kenneth’s mansion, and he’d expected that they’d be playing some kind of game on the 81” 3D LED LCD TV he had in his suite.

He wasn’t expecting to come face-to-face with a pile of boxes.

“They’re boxes, my friend,” Kenneth replied with a small smirk as he sipped at a glass of sparkling apple juice a servant had brought when the boys had arrived. “I fully understand you’ve been neglecting your studies, but do try and pay attention to your surroundings?”

“You little fucker, I’m gonna—...”

Before Kyle could lash out at the blond, Stan pushed his thick black-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose — a fashion statement, really — before stepping in between the two; if Kyle managed to start bitching Kenneth out, then there’s no way anyone would be able to figure out the situation. “Kyle, shut the fuck up for two seconds. Kenneth, why _did_ you call us here?”

“I’m glad you asked, Stan.” Kenneth beamed as he sat down in one of the nearby luxurious high-backed chairs, and he set his glass on a marble coaster adorning the solid mahogany side table. “You see, I finally found the perfect furniture for the tertiary games room — there’s plenty of storage for all of my duplicate games, and it can accommodate larger televisions… something that most entertainment centres don’t take into consideration.” He crossed his legs, resting his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward. “The catch, of course, is that it needs to be built.”

“Built?” Kyle repeated as he stared at the boxes in disgust. “You’re fucking shitting me, right? Don’t you have goons for this kind of grunt work?”

"I do, and they’re standing right here.” Kenneth couldn’t help but smile as the redhead lunged for him, Eric taking a few steps back with a panicked squeak as Stan grabbed Kyle from the back of the collar. “But in all seriousness, I can’t afford to spare any of my servants, so you’ll have to assist me with this endeavour.”

“Not for free, we’re not,” Kyle growled as he grabbed Stan’s wrist and pulled it away, adjusting the collar of his jacket after shooting a quick glare at Stan. “What’s it worth to you?”

“Always predictable, I see.” Kenneth’s shoulders sagged as he sighed, and he held up two fingers. “Two hundred dollars each.”

“Uh, Kenny,” Eric piped up after seeing the situation was somewhat defused. “Don’t worry, you don’t need to pay me. I’d be happy to help you build that thing!”

“Speak for yourself, fatass,” Kyle snapped as he narrowed his eyes at Eric, who quickly retreated back to the chair he’d been occupying. “Three hundred.”

“Do I look like I’m made of money?” Kenneth rolled his eyes in a dramatic fashion as the other three boys made affirming noises, and he sighed in resignation as he pulled out his wallet. “Fine. Three hundred for all three of you. Tch, that puts a small dent in my allowance for the week.”

“Deal with it, rich bitch.” Kyle said with a smirk as he quickly snatched his share of the money out from Kenneth’s hands. “Let’s do this quick so I can blow this all on weed and hookers.”

“Excuse me, young master.” An older man’s voice sounded from the entrance of the room, and everyone turned to see one of Kenneth’s servants standing there. “Begging your pardon, but Master McCormick requires your immediate presence in his office.”

“Ooh, I might be in trouble.” A small, nervous laugh escaped Kenneth’s lips, and he stood up with an apologetic expression. “All the tools we’ll need are by the boxes. Start without me and I’ll be back as fast as I can.”

Kenneth quickly left with the servant, leaving the three boys alone in the parlour. After a few minutes, Stan sighed as he removed his tuque, throwing it on one of the chairs as he ran his fingers through his slicked back hair.

“He’s probably gonna be a while... let’s just get this over with.”

“Yeah, with the three of us, it shouldn’t be a huge problem!” Eric nodded with enthusiasm as he moved towards the boxes. “And I’ve been wanting to get mom a nice present, too.”

“Fuck your mom,” Kyle spat as he reached into his jacket pocket for his pack of cigarettes. “No one likes that hippie granola bitch anyways.”

“That’s not nice, Kyle…” Eric’s voice quavered somewhat as he spoke, and he busied himself with opening boxes so he wouldn’t cry.  “Oh, I found the instructions!” An expression of pride crossed the brown-haired boy’s face as held up a thick newsprint booklet.

“Sweet, bring them here.” With a flick of his lighter, Kyle lit the cigarette that he’d placed between his lips. Once Eric held the instructions out to him, he gave the cover a cursory glance before directing the flame towards the paper, the thin newsprint catching fire as soon as it touched it.

Eric shrieked as he dropped the booklet, which quickly became engulfed in flames, and both Kyle and Stan laughed as the larger boy stomped on the flames to put them out.  Tears started forming in the corners of Eric’s eyes as he glared at the two, and his voice rose a few octaves as he yelled at them.

“What’d you do that for?! You could have hurt me, you know! And now we have no way of knowing how to build this thing...”

“Relax, fatass,” Kyle laughed as he patted Eric on the shoulder, though his actions seemed more condescending than anything. “Instructions are for pussies. We don’t need ‘em.”

With that, Stan and Kyle began tearing through the boxes in front of them, tossing various cardboard dividers and miscellaneous foam away from the group. Eric, for his park, slunk away to the chairs, curling up with his knees against his chest as he focused on his phone.

“Why’d Kenneth buy this shit, anyways?” Kyle ripped open a bag of screws, dumping them on the plush carpet without a care. “This looks a little too cheapass for him.”

“Dunno,” Stan replied as he struggled to bring one of the sides up. “Maybe he wanted to go with something different.  Now hold that thing up so I can screw the side on.”

“He’s not fucking hipster like you are,”  Kyle laughed as he grabbed the cordless drill — there only seemed to be one amongst all the tools — as well as a couple of long screws. “I think we’re supposed to use those round metal thingies.”

“Nah, man, we got this,” Stan chuckled. “We don’t need all that shit. Watch.”

Stan took the drill from Kyle’s hands, and after rising to his feet in order to stabilise himself, he positioned the screw and drove it through the wood.

Several things happened at this point: Stan went full-tilt with the drill, making the screw — which hadn’t been positioned in a pilot hole — slip in diagonally. The wood on the side of the unit splintered with a dry crack as the screw pierced through, and as the driver bit reached the surface of the unit, it stuttered and skipped towards Kyle, who dropped the side he was holding up so his hands wouldn’t get mauled by the power tool. With but one badly-inserted screw to hold that end up, it came crashing down, the wood snapping in half as it fell.

The three boys stared at the resulting carnage even as the drill kept whirring on the carpet. After a moment, Kyle picked up the drill, shutting it off with a disturbingly stone-faced expression. He looked up at Stan, his green eyes tinged with a cross between annoyance and complete rage.

“Now we’re doing this _my_ way,” he said in a low voice as he set the drill aside.

“‘Kay.” Stan replied in the same tone, though he couldn’t quite meet Kyle’s eyes as he spoke.

Kyle grunted as he sat heavily, grabbing pieces at random and sorting them out on the lush carpeting before him; after a while, he grabbed a handful of screws, and after slamming them on top of one of the pieces, he shoved it towards Stan, who looked at the whole thing with a blank stare.

“Screws,” Kyle clarified. “Drive them in the small holes. And not with your dick for once.” Kyle threw several screwdrivers towards the hipster, who winced as he was hit by the tools.

Stan gave a withering glare at Kyle as the redhead laughed at his own joke, and Kyle proceeded to work on the pieces he’d claimed for himself. Since he’d managed to commandeer the drill for himself, he had no problems putting the bits together, though he had to admit that without the instructions, he was going in mostly blind.

The pair worked in silence for a while, and after Kyle finished working on his stuff, he glanced over at what Stan was doing…

… and found him still working on the first piece he’d given him.

“The fuck are you doing?!” Kyle asked as he dragged himself over to where the raven-haired teen was sitting. Stan was dutifully trying to screw everything in… and hopelessly stripping the screws in the process.

“You told me to screw them!” Stan protested as he motioned to his handiwork. “Isn’t that what I’m doing?”

“You’re stripping all the screws, though! For fuck’s sakes, gimme that—...”

Kyle snatched the screwdriver out of Stan’s hands, and he all but growled as he looked at the screws; it looked like someone had chewed up the heads and spit them out, leaving a mess of unusable flash. Worse, they’d all been put in somewhat askew, and if a half-screwed-in state that would make it impossible to proceed any further.

After some choice language between the two boys, they finally managed to fix Stan’s blunder, and the rest of the assembly proceeded. It was only at the end where they found they had a board… and it wouldn’t fit anywhere.

“Now what?” Stan asked as he stared at both the finished product and the remaining piece.

Kyle didn’t reply as he looked at their handiwork. It wasn’t like he could get away with not putting the thing in — it wobbled like a tower in the wind without it.

“Hey, uh, guys?” Eric piped up from the pillow and embroidered throw fort he’d made around him.  “It says here that the piece you have on the left there should’ve gone on the right, because all the holes are on the outside now...” The meek boy pointed his phone’s display towards the other two, where he’d brought up all the instructions.  “You’re… um… gonna have to take it all apart to fix it.”

Both Kyle and Stan stared at the phone for a while, disbelief etching itself on their faces as they realised that everything they’d done was all for nothing. After the initial shock wore off, Kyle let out a string of epithets as he kicked the structure, and all three looked in horror as the whole thing — as unstable as it was — fell over and break into a dozen splintered pieces.

• • • • •

 

Meanwhile, in a closed audio-visual room, Kenneth McCormick, scion of the McCormick household, was in stitches as he watched the scene unfold on an expansive security monitor. A half-eaten bowl of popcorn as well as several Italian sodas were scattered over the desk, the signs of someone having snacked while watching their latest source of entertainment.  

Having his father summon him had been a ploy — after all, he wasn’t even in town — and it was for the sole purpose of being able to laugh privately at his friends. Stan had been right, of course, and he had worried for a moment that the boys would see through his act: he would have never bought something as cheap and pre-fabricated like what they were trying to build, and it would likely go into a dumpster as soon as the joke had run to completion.

However, the price — as well as the money he’d paid them, was the best entertainment money could buy.

 

\- The End -

 

 


End file.
